Smartphone Camera Lenses
The camera phone has become an indispensable tool for many people. Always having a camera with them means they can capture inspiration and beauty wherever they discover it. A set of specialty lenses enables them to get extreme close-ups, fisheye effects, and wide angle views, and the image quality is good enough to hang on any gallery wall.
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Inspiration is fleeting, and art trends come and go. Help the artist you know embrace the impermanence of their creations with this Zen water canvas. Water is brushed on the absorbent canvas, leaving beautiful gray marks that evaporate and completely disappear within minutes, reminding the artist that their best ideas are yet to come.
Artists and writers often keep notebooks filled with ideas and doodles. If you know one that has boxes and boxes full of old notebooks, then this smart digital notebook may be the perfect gift. It feels like paper but can transfer what’s scribbled inside to their computer for saving and editing. Once the notebook pages are full, they just erase the physical copies, by putting the Pocketbook into the microwave. After being nuked the pages are blank again and they can fill it back up.
If you know an artist that likes to draw or paint from photographs, this instant printer may be just the thing they need. Sure they could use their desktop computer, but this is a whole lot easier and they can take it anywhere. If you’ve ever played with an old Polaroid camera you know the joy of snapping a photo and instantly seeing a print. It’s also a quick way to produce small scale art - snap a picture with the phone, print, sign, and sell.
It’s rumored that the real reason great Renaissance artists like Ingres, Van Eyck, and Caravaggio were able to draw so accurately is very simple - they cheated. The Camera Lucida is an ingenious tool that superimposes the subject’s image on the artist’s canvas. From there, all the artist needs to do is trace the projected image and, voila, another masterpiece accurate down to the last detail.
Why bother with messy paints and long drying times when there’s a perfectly good computer to paint on? The digital paintbrush mimics the flexibility and feel of the real thing, and even leaves brush stokes. It can simulate painting in oil, acrylic, watercolor or charcoal and is compatible with most touchscreen devices.
Shapescapes is a toy designed to inspire creativity in three dimensions. Once you start playing with it you can’t keep your hands off. It’s like a combination of legos and trying to see shapes in clouds. It’s described as a product for kids but there’s no reason this wouldn’t be fun for adults too, and after all, artists are often kids at heart.
If the artist you know is of the starving variety, they probably can’t afford to take professional photos of what they make. Yet having high quality images is important if they ever want to sell any of their work. Until they save up enough to get that fancy camera, you can get them started with this table top photo studio perfect for documenting small artwork.
Know an artist who has lots and lots of time on their hands? This stop motion animation kit may be the perfect thing to fill up those hours. It’s actually a really fun process, but it is slow - there’s no way around that. This kit will certainly help speed things up and they’ll be making short films before they can say Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.